


Reunion

by devilswreckedchewtoy (AmberFyre)



Series: In The End I Feel Alive [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU of an AU, Boy King of Hell Sam Winchester, M/M, Mental Instability, Mental Link, Originally Posted on Tumblr, RP verse fic, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 07:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16057958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmberFyre/pseuds/devilswreckedchewtoy
Summary: After two years (topside anyway) Sam reappears in Ben's life. The question... could Ben accept Sam as he was now and all he'd done to get back to him.





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> Written for wolfofthe141-archive for an RP verse. This was an AU of an AU that took a dark turn. Unbeta'd so any mistakes are my own. As per usual, I own nothing but the story. Originally posted on tumblr.

Sam didn’t know whether to give Ben props for letting him into the room or to dress him down for it, but he did neither because he’d rather not have this conversation in full view of the questionable public.  He didn’t blame the suspicious eyes trained on him.  He’d be suspicious too.  Mostly he was trying to figure out how to prove to Ben that he was HIM and not something else.

Showing his intact anti-possession tattoo had been what convinced Ben to let him in the room.  But Ben was still tense and wary and, as a result, Sam was still tense and wary.  Because he knew he wouldn’t pass all of the standard hunter’s tests.  He just wasn’t sure how he would manage to convince Ben it was actually _him_ once that failed.

Ben, open wounds still bleeding even after all this time, wasn’t sure what he was feeling.  There was part of him that was hoping, fucking praying, that this was Sam.  There hadn’t been a body left behind and even if it had been this long not a day had gone by without thoughts of Sam crowding his brain.  But he had to be sure.

When Ben handed him a blade without a word, and Sam had to assume it was silver, he tensed just a bit more.  He took it silently, his heart sinking, though he held Ben’s gaze as he dragged the blade across his arm.  It didn’t smoke and burn as it would have had he been a shifter, but the wound healed almost immediately.  Obviously not normal.

Sam saw Ben’s eyes flash, and anger- no not anger, pure rage- twisted his face as he snarled, pulling another knife.  Ruby’s blade, the one Sam had thrown away when he’d made the damn deal in the first place, and even if Sam knew it wouldn’t kill him, it would hurt and it wouldn’t really help his case any at all.

But it was the rage that flared up in Ben just before he lunged that hit Sam first.  A surge of emotion he shouldn’t have caught the echoes of, but did anyway.  And that rage, as Ben lunged snarling at him, triggered a slide to the cold edge he’d honed as he’d taken his place as ruler of Hell.

He caught Ben’s arm, gripping the hand with the blade and holding it out to the side as he whirled him around, his other arm going to a chokehold around Ben’s neck, trying to immobilize him.  Ben struggled against the hold, which was far stronger than it should have been and Sam struggled to keep the cold edge in him from clashing with the hot rage pouring through Ben.

What neither of them anticipated was what happened when the struggling caused Sam’s hand to slip and skin to skin contact was initiated.  The sudden submergence into memory took them both by surprise as neither had expected it.  In the space of several heartbeats Sam was inundated with the hell Ben had been going through from the moment he woke from death and Ben was swamped with Sam’s experiences from the moment Crowley took him away.

The shock of it dropped them both to their knees, locked in a tighter rapport than either had experienced before.  Their separate pain and grief echoed between them, the loss and feeling off balance and as though they were only half of themselves felt from both perspectives.  And nothing either of them could do but ride it out until it was over, until the memories had run their course and faded, leaving them both jarred and disoriented.

Sam rested his forehead against the back of Ben’s neck as he slid away from the cold edge, pain and regret rising in him.  Knocked for a loop at the sudden submergence in Ben’s memories and seeing, _feeling_ what Ben had been through the last two years.  It only further bruised his heart and the thought, _I did this to him_ , drifted through his mind, catching on the jagged edges of pain.

He still held Ben’s hand out to one side, still had him pressed back to front.  He loosened his arm from the choke hold around Ben’s neck and slid it down so it was across his chest instead.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” Sam said softly.  The carefully constructed walls he’d built around his shattered heart had fallen, leaving him wide open to feeling everything he’d been keeping at bay.  He could put them back up, would have to if he wanted to keep the demons from seeing his weakness.  But it was just him and Ben here and now.  He whispered the words again, wondering if Ben could forgive him for leaving him alone.

Ben sucked in a slow breath, struggling for his own equilibrium after climbing out of the morass of memories.  The rage that had slid through him, fierce and hot, had ebbed and he’d dropped the blade, horror welling up with the pain and grief.  Because he couldn’t doubt now that this _was_ Sam, the man he loved, who’d become his whole world.  And he’d attacked him.

But what caused minute tremors to run through him was seeing just what Sam had done, what he’d _become_ , all to get back to Ben.  For _him_.

“Why, Sam?”  His voice was rough, laden with pain and he didn’t try to move away.  Instead he closed his eyes as tears welled up.  “I’m _not worth_ this, damnit!”

“You are to _me_!”  Sam’s voice was soft but fierce.  “You are worth _everything_ to me.”  And he stopped there, though thoughts continued unvoiced. _You’re my life, my breath, my world.  I am nothing without you.  And I couldn’t let you go.  And I’m so, so sorry._

He hadn’t expected the words to echo through whatever link he had with Ben, but he felt Ben shudder hard when the words were thought.  Like he’d heard every single one.  And Sam couldn’t even be sorry because he’d meant it with every bit of him.

Ben dragged in another slow breath.  He’d known how much he meant to Sam, but hearing it like that, feeling it like he still could like an ache that matched the one he’d carried, almost froze the air in his lungs.  The words were an echo of his own thoughts and the love and pain and grief and fear he felt from Sam was almost identical to what he’d carried these last two years.  Still carried as a matter of fact.

It didn’t stop him from feeling as though it was his fault Sam had become what he’d become.  That if they’d never met, never fallen in love, Sam wouldn’t have… wouldn’t have…

Sam caught the edge of that thought and flinched himself.  He didn’t blame Ben.  Not for a second.  Not for this.  But he’d already expected Ben would once he knew exactly how far Sam had gone.  Head still resting against the back of Ben’s neck, he closed his eyes slowly.  Fear surged in him.  Because he knew, _he knew_ , if Ben couldn’t accept him as he was now, he would go away.  If Ben wanted him to leave him alone he would.  But he also knew if he walked away he’d leave the best of what he was behind in this room… and all that would be left would be the cold creature he could feel hovering at the edges of his consciousness.  Because without Ben he had no reason _not_ to let it all go.  He was _nothing_ without Ben.

He let the arm around Ben’s chest slide away and turned the hand he was still holding loose, fought with himself to pull back enough to put space between them (and it hurt to do that, hurt so damn much to put even that little bit of space between them now that he was _here_ and Ben was _here_ and all he wanted to do was never let him go) and opened his eyes, breath uneven.

“I’ll go.  If you don’t want me-“  His breath caught and his voice broke.  He stopped to swallow hard.  “If you can’t accept me like this, I’ll go.”  He didn’t want to say the words at all, could feel a tangled cloud of emotions rise in him along with the insane desire to hold on to Ben and never, ever, let him go.  But he wouldn’t force himself on Ben.  He would NOT do that, even if it destroyed what was left of his sanity.

The sudden physical space between them struck Ben like a cold blade buried in his skin, causing panic and fear to well up in him.  Because he didn’t fucking care what Sam _was_.  He didn’t fucking care what Sam had done.  He had just lived two years without him and he knew he was barely treading water as it was.  Sam was here and if he left again…

He turned, awkward because they were both still on their knees on the floor, and clutched at  Sam, arms going around him and clinging so tightly it.  “No.  Don’t go.”  It was a broken whisper barely audible.  But the emotions welling up in him were clear enough.  _You can’t go away again.  You can’t fucking leave me alone.  Not now that you’re here.  I need you damnit!_

The storm of emotions that surged through Ben echoed through Sam and he braced to absorb it.  Caught the force of Ben’s unspoken words and felt his own arms come up to hold Ben just as fucking hard.  He hadn’t been sure, hadn’t known for certain, that Ben wouldn’t turn him away.  Wouldn’t hate him for what he’d done.

He knew they’d have to talk.  He was not the same man he’d been before this.  He knew he was broken in ways he hadn’t been before, knew that his sanity was fragile at best.  And he could feel the same kind of break in Ben.  As if the sudden flare of rage before hadn’t been clue enough.  Or the fact that _Ben_ had been _torturing_ and killing demons already.  He didn’t want to suck Ben any deeper into the shadows he walked now, would do everything he could to keep them from claiming them both.  But as long as Ben wanted him he wouldn’t, _couldn’t_ , walk away again.

“I missed you, so damn much.”  The words were spoken into Ben’s hair.  “Had to come back.  Had to fucking apologize for leaving you.”  And there was too much feeling in his voice, too much emotion for one who’d learned to show nothing, feel nothing.  But it was Ben and he couldn’t hide it.  _I’m sorry I couldn’t let you go.  I’m sorry I left you.  I’m sorry I love you too much._

Ben pulled away only to grasp Sam’s face with both hands and stare him in the eye.  “Missed you too.”  _Don’t leave me again.  I need you.  I love you.  I have nothing without you._

The first kiss was hesitant, tentative, almost shy.  It changed between one breath and the next to something fierce and needy and desperate.  Pain and loss, grief and love, fear and sorrow, it was all there.  Both apologizing for needing the other so damn much that neither could let go, neither could walk away.  Echoing through the link between them, feeding keen-edged desire that was almost feral in its intensity.

It was hours later before they could pull themselves out of their own private world.  Hours they spent relearning what they had never forgotten and attempting to leave their mark so deep on the other that it would never fade.  Hours before they allowed reality to intrude.  During which time they swore to themselves and each other that nothing would ever separate them again.  That they would keep each other from sliding too far into darkness and insanity.

And knew full well that while they would succeed with one, they would inevitably fail at the other.


End file.
